Steinbox

While washing her hands after lunch on Saturday, a drinking glass got knocked over, broke on our porcelain sink, and the bottom half of the glass fell off the counter and into Amelia’s leg.

Rest assured I did not take these pictures until after we got home from the hospital!  Actually, Ben took them.  I really wanted to take the camera along to the hospital, but I refrained…I didn’t want to be “that mom.”

I was standing right behind her and saw the glass everywhere…I told her not to move and then noticed all the red on the floor.  I thought it was jam…then I realized we hadn’t had jam for lunch and starting yelling for Ben.  Amelia wasn’t even crying.  I couldn’t see the injury, just the blood, and was holding her shoulders from behind so she wouldn’t step on the glass…Ben ran in, took one look at her leg, and said “Hand me the phone.”

Amelia then experienced her first ambulance ride.  We weren’t at all pleased with that experience, but that’s another story.

The nurse at the ER didn’t even look at her leg (it was bandaged already), just rolled her eyes and said “She can go to the waiting room.”  We waited 3 hours.  Amelia sat in a wheelchair with her leg up and didn’t cry at all.

At one point a nurse checked her in and unwrapped the bandage to have a look–I saw it then and got pretty queasy–I was imagining a straight line like a paper-cut–but no, it was wide open–I hope never to see fat cells again!!

Eventually she got x-rayed (no glass remaining) and a great PA stitched her up.  He was fantastic with her (has 3 young children himself, plus 25 goats and assorted chickens, a pig, and so forth.  Amelia said, “It sounds like you live on a farm.”  He said, “Yeah, but we don’t make any money, we just spend it.”  He also asked which Disney Princess was her favorite–Snow White–he then asked her why and she said “Because she doesn’t let her step-mother kill her!,”  to which Ben responded “Girl Power!”).

She cried a lot when he put the needle in six different places to numb her, but the stitching part was fine.

It only looks like seven stitches, you say?  Well, there are seven more underneath–it was that deep.  In theory those will dissolve, and she’s supposed to have the top ones removed 14 days later.   That will be over July 4th, so we’ll try at day 12, and if they’re not ready, we’ll have to wait until day 16.   She isn’t allowed to get them wet or do any running or strenuous activity.  Thankfully she’s not much for straining herself to begin with–we’re all pretty unathletic around here!  They wanted to give her a brace, but didn’t have any small enough, so they gave her an ace bandage instead.

We went to a graduation party that night and let her walk around there (she had great fun telling everyone her tale–”They said I did better than the grown-ups!” and “I popped open like a pop-open hot dog!”), but when we went to change the bandage that night, she had bled through all 20 layers of bandaging and her ace bandage.  It never had stopped bleeding the whole 4 hours from when it happened until she got stitched, and apparently kept bleeding even after stitching.  Ben put her back together and I didn’t let her walk at all Sunday, Monday or Tuesday.  She’s been stuck on various couches with her leg up!   (Sunday morning I stepped on a piece of glass that got missed during clean-up and started bleeding myself–I only needed a band-aid though!)

She’s been doing a lot of reading and coloring–not so different from her usual routine.  I’m getting my exercise carrying her to the bathroom several times a day, and changing her scenery.

Our friend Betsy lent her several Strawberry Shortcake dvd’s, which are a big hit, as well as a Leapster.  I am so glad we don’t own one of these, but she’s been enjoying it.

Today I started letting her walk on it a little bit–not up stairs or anything yet.  It’s right on the spot where it bends–if the glass had landed an inch higher,she could probably have run around with the stitches in, but it’s in just the wrong spot.

She’s in very good spirits and is enjoying getting to watch a dvd or 2 each day–usually a treat once a week at the most–actually much less often than that.   We’ve been letting her watch Strawberry Shortcake in the morning, and then before bed an episode of Shelley Duvall’s Fairie Tale Theatre.   She cried the whole way through Thumbelina!  I’d forgotten how sensitive she is to anything sad happening!

It was amazing to see how well she handled everything Saturday–we’re so proud of her!